Sunday, December 18, 2011

Minuses and Pluses

A question for the state government: What's with this new "Sales Tax" ? As of a few shifts ago taxi drivers have been paying $4.75 more per shift to lease a cab. I thought the odds you (and other entities who want a slice of our pathetic little pie) stacked against our livelihoods couldn't get any higher. The management at my garage could not answer why it's even called a Sales Tax. Thanks for bursting my sensibility bubble. Passengers have no idea about this. They wouldn't know how much we paid in the first place. Let alone how the whole taxi system works for drivers. I invite anyone to come along for part or all of a shift, front seat, like a copilot, and see for yourself. Or at least just click on the pic to enlarge the evidence.

Next question goes out to the credit card technology folks. Why does the passenger screen pop a "Thank You" in the middle of a transaction, before it's authorized? Passengers often mistakenly believe it means they've already been charged, whether they're sober or drunk. They look at me and respond as if I'm a lying crook when I tell them my screen says "swipe again" or "card error" or "declined" or "not approved." Please prevent the back screen from thanking them prematurely. Thank you.

A shout out to Amadou, 9M86's steady night driver, for always making my shift start full blast with Senegalese talk radio on 930 am, soon as I turn the ignition. I love listening to that language, though I don't understand. A minute later I'm flushed with frustration and hooking up my FM transmitter on 95.1 to treat my passengers to my own homemade radio station of 1400 mp3 hymns of every imaginable culture and genre.

2 comments:

Hi there -- based on your medallion # -- think I might have left a backpack in your cab last night around 8:35 pm last night (Friday 12) -- drop off at w 84 and riverside. If so -- could you let me know at grahamc43@gmail.com. -- thanks so much

Dear MAT1, I have not driven a cab since March. Besides that, I have not had a steady cab assigned to me since 2008 or so. Meaning that when I do drive a cab, it's a different cab every shift. Therefore the medallion number doesn't tell you much. Also, if you are referring to the medallion number I mentioned in this particular post, I don't think you understood the context. I drive day shift. Not evenings. Perhaps call the taxi garage at 718 858 3502 and give them the details. Much luck with your backpack.

SHOESTRINGS

There are ways to see the world without it costing you, the locals, or the environment an arm and a leg. Hitch-hiking and couch-surfing are viable forms of sustainable transportation. They are also informal and scattered, yet highly insightful forms of education. Carpooling with strangers. Friends you have not met yet. Hitchhiking is the polar opposite, or inverse, of taxi driving. Below are pictures of Gusbert's journeys through France, Peru, California and Alaska. He's also hitched through 44 other US states and chunks of Equador, Catalunya, Deutschland, and the Netherlands. Buses, trains, and ferries account for the 21 other countries traveled through to date.

zeniths of actualization

cartographic art

maps are essential to a topographical grunt's existence. like anything else, they truly only belong to those who need them at any given moment. however, a perpetually growing personal collection of maps isn't sinful, much less those created by hand.

a map of the randomly unfolding route of a taxi (or box truck) shift can be color-coded and collage-worked with accompanying text about passengers and panoramas experienced in a twelve hour voyage.

mapmaking may occur as a form of journaling in any daily string of occurrences. it can be as left brain as it is right.

graffiti is art

rather this visual noise pollution than corporate advertising. they serve as great monuments along the personalized bicycle tour of the boroughs that gusbert offers.